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Wednesday, November 30, 2016

We're looking at anthracite this week, and I have yet another older photo to share with you.

As this is a matte, it probably helps to work quickly. I would say two coats are good enough here, and of course there's no top coat on. I don't usually have the best experience, staying power-wise, with matte nail polishes - for example, China Glaze Stone Cold chips on me within less than an hour after application; I do have a new favorite base coat, though, which has, I feel, increased the longevity of my manis greatly, so I might have to try again one of these days.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Having used twoother polishes from this limited edition for series before, I might actually be able to use all of the shades of this LE at some point. We're looking at turquoise this week, and while I'm not 100% satisfied with this pick, I do think it works.

I didn't layer this when I swatched it, but I would recommend it, as the base isn't very opaque at all and the glitter isn't densely enough packed to make up for it. I think this is probably three coats and top coat.

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Today I have a bit of a special something for you. Lena wanted light red for today, and though my red isn't as light as you might imagine, I think it still works.

These are once again a bit older, but still pretty - right? I felt it was okay to use these pictures as Starcrossed isn't really full-coverage at all, so you can see tiger lily really well underneath. I would assume tiger lily needs two to three coats, and Starcrossed will be fine at one, though if you want more sparkle obviously go for more! Top coat is on, too. I have to say Starcrossed is a serious favorite of mine, just like ILNP's My Private Rainbow (X) it works with pretty much anything and always looks great.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

I'm trying to post all these limited edition releases as quickly as possible for y'all, and I do hope you haven't seen them a million times already. I experimented a bit with nail studs (that's what you call this stuff, right?) here...

cryptic aura
This is two coats. If you're someone who applies their coats more on the thick side, it might work out to be a one-coater for you. I added top coat for extra sparkle power.

I actually kinda liked what I came up with here - what do you think? The thing with this nail jewelry is that the metal bits are stuck (though not too well in some cases) to an adhesive sort of tape that will always be visible, even with top coat applied over everything. So that bugged me a bit with all of these. The other thing is that the tape of course loves to stick to your skin, too, so it can be hard to place the studs on the nail.

dark desire
Another one that was good at two coats with top coat. I like the shift in this.

addictive passion
This grayish green with gold flecks stole my heart a little bit... Opaque in two coats and just gorgeous with top coat, as shown.

I decided to go a bit more all-out with this pattern and liked it quite a bit.

sweet seduction
This is the only polish in this LE that I needed three coats of, as it seems to have a bit of a jelly-like base. I added top coat, as usual. A subtle shift here, but also pretty; I like it!

Placing these studs was a struggle. It was hard to hold onto the studs and also to place them at least somewhat straight on the nail. I liked my basic idea, but the execution wasn't the best.

Friday, November 11, 2016

While we're in for a lot of sparkle, glitter and overall splendor with the holidays collections that are already starting to come out (and I'm totally on board with it all), this limited edition is a bit more subtle and laid back, I suppose, with earthy tones that really fit the mellow vibe of fall. What a long single sentence... let's get started already.

Maroon Mélange
I applied three coats and top coat here, but they were more on the thick-ish side. If you're using thin coats, be prepared to apply three.

Woodland LiBERRY
Here I used two coats, but had two spots that weren't perfect, so I just patched those up without doing a third coat. It might turn out a bit patchy, though, and will make you add another coat. Top coat was applied, too.

WALDEN's Leaf Letter
This was more sheer than I expected, and I needed three coats. If you apply thicker coats, two will be enough. As usual, I added top coat.

Nude Knit
As per usual with light, nude colors, I had to apply three coats of this to get it to be opaque and smooth. I was careful with the third coat, so that I wouldn't push down the brush too much and get patches again. Topcoated, as (almost) always.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

I have another older picture to share with you today - I seem to be left with a lot of neutrals in that "old" folder. In any case, I picked a very nude shade for this week!

You might be able to tell from the bottle (right where the essence "e" logo is!) that there's some gold shimmer in this, however, it's nearly invisible on the nail. Too bad really, I think it would work with this shade. I'm assuming this is three coats, and top coat of course.

Monday, November 7, 2016

I'm not sure it's meant to be, but this definitely works as a New Year's collection in my opinion. I didn't do any creative mixing-and-matching this time, sorry about that; if you're interested in other combinations than the ones shown here, let me know.

First off, let me talk about the bottle caps here. I get that you had to make the caps of the bottles fit into the larger cap that holds both bottles together, but there's room for much bigger bottle tops in that big, black cap - they could be almost twice their height, and probably also a little wider, though the width isn't really a problem from my point of view. Despite the caps being so short, I didn't really have that much trouble with them at all; holding them would be a bit more of a comfortable experience if they were longer, though.

pink fizz
I used two coats of the white polish, and it wasn't exactly perfect at that; however, with the glitter and top coat over it, it looked fine to me. The glitter was easy enough to get out, but as usual, I manipulated it a little here and there to get it spread over the nail more evenly.

cosmopolitan
I applied two coats of the red base, which is a bit jelly-like and thus wasn't completely covering, and it might have been slightly patchy. But again, with the glitter covering it and top coat helping with smoothness, it didn't really matter. The topper was a bit of a hassle as at first, the diamond-shaped silver glitter didn't want to come out, even with fishing. At some point I managed to fish the right way, I guess, and got this to look good - as almost always, with a bit of manipulation of the glitters.

old fashioned
This gray-blueish base I actually love just by itself; I put on two coats of it, and again, it wasn't 100% perfect, but again, I figured it wouldn't be worth adding a third coat if it was gonna get covered in glitter anyway. This glitter was easy enough to get out of the bottle and didn't require fishing, just a little manipulation. I also added top coat.

singapur sling
This base actually required third coats to look good enough. I like the color a lot! I made sure to shake up the glitter and that seemed to help with getting the diamond-shaped glitter onto the brush. Once again, some manipulation of the glitters and top coat on top. These gold diamonds don't seem to lay as flat as the silver ones for some reason.

Saturday, November 5, 2016

Even though fall is still in full swing, the first holiday limited editions/collections are rolling in, and essence is, as usual, on board. Seriously, they pump out LEs like it's going out of style. Then again, they've kinda always been doing that, so no surprise there. I only picked up two of the four polishes released, the other two are a gold and a pink.

let's take an elfie
I used three coats and top coat for this one. It looked very patchy on the first coat, and on the second I wasn't really sure if I would ever get it to look good, but it looked fine on the third (even though it still doesn't cover 100%). This has a bit of a gritty texture and is quite thick, which doesn't necessarily make application easier. I thought maybe it would work as a topper, but really, with the patchiness and the coverage it has despite the patches, it definitely does not. I just realized this might be supposed to look like freshly fallen snow in the sun.

meet me under the mistletoe
I'm not sure why I was so hell-bent on getting this bog-standard dark green polish, but I guess for some reason I just felt weird only getting the white sparkly one. Oh well, at least it covers in two coats and was easy to apply. I added top coat, as usual.

santa's back in town nail jewelry stickers
These were fairly easy to use, not much to say about that - apart from the fact that you have to basically cut the edges when the sticker is already on your nail. This means that you have to be daring enough to cut the ends of the sticker back far enough so they won't get caught on everything, but also careful enough to not cut into the edge of your nail when doing that. But maybe that's just difficult for me.

My biggest gripe is really with the overall size choices of these stickers. They were too long for my nails, but not always wide enough to cover them completely (as you can kinda see on my pointer finger nail). There are three fairly narrow and short stickers, then two more medium-sized ones and two bigger ones. I don't think there's one wide enough for my thumb nail. I would personally use these as shown above - for an accent here and there. For application on all fingers this would probably seem too busy a pattern to me.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Does anyone else find that Maybelline limited editions lately just pop up in stores unannounced? I remember some hypes over LEs from Color Show before, but lately I just stumble upon new stuff sometimes when I browse and I'm like "Oh look, something new, did they ever mention it would come out?". Not that I expect companies to talk about every little thing they do, but come on. In any case, this LE is in stores right now. There is a fourth polish, a sort of dusty, dark blue, which I didn't pick up just because it didn't quite seem interesting enough to me.

Disco-Ball
over black on pointer and pinky finger nails

over gray (H&M "Cloudburst")
Why in the world, though, would you call the collection "Disco Ball" and then name one of the polishes "Disco-Ball"? What the frick-frack?

As you can see, all of these are a mix of hex and shredded, randomly-shaped glitter which also varies in size. I did some light fishing to try and get enough glitter on the brush to cover each of my nails in one go, which I find easier than having to go back into the bottle after a first coat. I also manipulated the glitters a bit to get them distributed the way I wanted them - obviously you only have a limited time window to do so before they stick too much to the base to be movable, another reason why I prefer to only have to apply one coat of glitter. I found the glitter-to-base ratio to be just fine, and added top coat for all the above pictures. Some of the irregularly-shaped glitters might stick up and not lay completely flat, but that's a rare occurence rather than the norm.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

I recently made another pretty big purchase of polishes from H&M, and this one was amongst them. I always love a good gray polish, because I feel the color gray is very versatile - and it comes in so many shades. More than 50, possibly. (badum tsss)

I used three coats and top coat. I think if you apply slightly more generous coats, two will easily be enough, I just had a few spots I wasn't quite satisfied with after the second coat, so I put on a third. The formula and brush made application a breeze. I do realize this week's theme is not gray, but this polish has enough of a blue tint to it for me to feel justified in showing it for "pigeon blue".

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

On Friday I showed you this polish's very beautiful sister, so today we're checking out the other hottie of this essence limited edition. What am I even writing right now.

I applied two coats and top coat. Aah, just look at that shift, which somehow I managed to capture better than the one on "Meet Me Midnight" (which I still think would sound better with an "at" thrown in there).